use, however, trying to convince the people of their error, even when they
kill poultry for themselves and can choose their time: they will never do
things otherwise than in the way to which they have been accustomed. The
French are stubbornly conservative in everything except politics.

As I felt the need of talking to-night, I fetched the farming innkeeper
from his kitchen and persuaded him to drink some of his own cognac. This he
did without wincing, but he soon returned the compliment by bringing out of
a cupboard a bottle of clear greenish liquor, which he said was _eau de vie
de figues_. It was something new to me. I had tasted alcohol distilled from
a considerable variety of the earth's fruits, but never from figs before.
It retained a strong flavour of its origin, and might have been correctly
described as fire-water, for it was almost pure spirit.

I drew this man into conversation upon the peasant's life. All that he
said was only confirmation of the opinion I had already formed from other
testimony respecting the occupation of Adam when he had to struggle with
nature outside of the terrestrial paradise. Let a man own as much soil as
he can till with his hands, let him have an ox, too, to help him: he can
only live at the price of almost incessant labour and rigorous frugality.
This is the normal condition of the peasant-proprietor's existence.

'The peasant who works seriously,' said the farmer, 'does not sleep more
than four hours a night during the summer months. He goes to bed at ten,
and gets up at two. This would not hurt him if he were better fed, but he
eats little besides his soup, and drinks bad _piquette_.'

The man went back to his kitchen, and then to his bed close by; the flame
of the lamp became sick unto death, for it now wanted oil, and the house
grew so quiet that the squeaking of the rats and the pattering of their